So many things have been keeping my life crazy this fall with the main one being sickness. It seemed that we couldn't stay well this fall. No major seizures this fall, that is a praise to God! She is still having them but we are able to get them stopped at home with meds in a reasonable amount of time. Moose is doing well. We have people asking about him often. I usually just say he is doing good because it is kind of a complicated answer. He is trained to alert during her larger seizures where you can physically see she is in a seizure. We work with him all the time to practice alerting. We keep with us a bag that contains a clicker, a tennis ball and a bracelet that is attached to fishing line. We put the bracelet on her while she sleeps and then will start pulling to imitate seizure activity. When he starts to alert we click and after several barks her get the tennis ball. This is the only time he is allowed to play with a tennis ball. We chose this toy because he LOVES tennis balls. So when she has been in a seizure that would require meds we can wait up to 5 minutes to give her first set of emergency meds. After being frustrated at first because we wanted to get the seizure stopped and he wasn't alerting, we made the decision to give that 5 minutes to Moose. We work to get him to alert and once he does we give meds. It usually doesn't take that long but we have to give him that time to make the connection. If we could predict her seizures or if they were happinging several times a day it would help but seizures are unpredictable. We did start working on him retrieving medications. We have a bag that was made by Jason at Highland that attaches to a chew rope and we hang it on the wall. A couple times a day we hang it up and say Meds which is the command to get the bag and bring it to us. He is getting very consistent getting it to me in different parts of the house. Our next step will be leaving it hanging there all the time and randomly calling for him to get them. Even though it is daily work, Moose is a blessing to us. Even when I find a pair of my favorite shoes have been turned into his new chew toy!
Sam is doing great in her new wheelchair and has been doing small trips in her walker. It makes me so proud of how far she has come. I can tell th seizures take a toll on her mentally. Some days she can tell you all her colors, count and so much more. Other days she struggles to remember. Those smaller seizures take a toll on her as well. Makes me worried about moving forward in school because I know it is going to be a struggle at times for her.
We are very blessed to have two amazing nurses helping with her right now. We are very thankful to Bayada for taking good care of our family. We are also very blessed to have a great PreK class for Sam. Her teachers are very caring and she has been blessed to have them for two years now. One of Sam's favorite people is her bus driver Cowboy who takes her home each day. She also has a great team of therapist. Between Speech, OT and PT, Sam is well taken care of.
Overall, life is rolling along. I hope all the people in our lives know how much of a blessing they are to us. We wish everyone a blessed Christmas season!
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